Mud fest, muddaful, going no wHere fast

Day 37. September 22nd. Most challenging day yet! 12.5 miles (yes, only 12.5…….. and we biked most of the day, or really pushed bikes through sagebrush….) for a total of 1470.5. To FR #42 remote site. MUD. Mud. MUD. Rain. MUD. We packed up from Kirsten’s land early, hoping to get to Steamboat today. Alas, the best laid plans sometimes go awry! Mud. Right before leaving the wet site, we saw a nice rainbow and hoped it was a good sign. Quickly we ran into the infamous peanut butter mud we had read about. It encases your tires and literally stops your bike, there is no moving forward when the wheels won’t rotate. We made 5.9 miles of progress in just under five hours!!!! We need our friends back! We used sticks and a bike tool we had with us to clear the mud every 3-5 minutes. SLOW progress but we just got into the routine of push a few feet, scrape the mud, push a bit more. We went off the road and pushed through the sagebrush, sometimes on cattle trails, other times just pushing through the brush and cow Pattie’s. The mud was on a section of road that we believe was private. Once we got back onto the county maintained road, it was more sandy and not sticky. We stopped and scraped as much as we could and rode 2-3 miles, which felt fast, but was really creeping along. Then a storm blew over us and we went under the emergency shelter again. We were quite tired from the pushing. A few miles further we missed a turn and rode down hill about a mile out of our way. We turned around, Went back up the hill, and the rain came down. We called it a day about 2 pm, it was not meant to be for us to arrive in Steamboat today. We set up camp in the rain, then the sun came out and we spent the afternoon drying gear, cleaning the bikes as best we could, and then we went back out on the bikes looking for a creek to get water. Another round trip of about 4 miles and we had water for dinner and breakfast. Thankful for water tonight.